Fairchild would work his way through all that in the next ten minutes if he hadn’t already. What he didn’t know, and what I had up my sleeve, or up a drainpipe, not that I knew what to do with it, was that Shanna and Danya had found a note in their mailbox a few days ago demanding a big chunk of money and they’d been given a cryptic and ultimately unworkable reason for parting with it. And there was the flash drive, which might or might not have something relevant and useful on it, but the name “Celine” written on it was intriguing.
I didn’t have the slightest idea what was going on, but like the previous summer, as a finder of missing persons I had no peer.
None.
Ma was gonna be so damn proud of me. I couldn’t wait for her to find out.
The interrogation room at RPD headquarters hadn’t changed one iota since my several visits last year, so I had a nice case of déjà vu working as I stared at my reflection in the one-way mirror. Heavy wooden table, chairs bolted to the floor, one sturdy door, and a vent high on one wall giving off an exhausted sigh.
This was going to play hell with today’s judo lesson. I was due at Rufus Booth’s private dojo at 1:30. My now-deceased fiancée, Jeri, had used judo to toss me around in her home workout room less than twenty minutes after we first met, and her brother, Ron, was one of the top judo masters in the United States in active competition. I thought judo made sense. If Jeri could toss me around like a sack of rice, what might I be able to do with a little training? In the hierarchy of martial arts, Ron was a sixth-dan judo master. He lived over a hundred miles away, not convenient for lessons, but he put me on to Rufus Booth, a ninth-dan master and not the kind of guy you’d ever, ever want to attack in a dark alley, not that that’s on my bucket list.
But . . . no judo lesson today. I’d been at it for three months, got my yellow belt last week. Jeri would’ve approved.
Russell Fairchild and Day came in. Russ Mirandized me while a video camera in a corner near the ceiling got it on tape or DVD. Then he reached up and switched the camera off, something they do in Russian prisons all the time.
He turned to Day. “What you are about to hear doesn’t leave this room, Cliff.”
“You might want to Mirandize him, too,” I said.
Fairchild glared at me. “You’re a piece of work, Angel. Got a mouth on you that won’t quit.”
“But I’m a dynamo when it comes to missing persons.”
Day’s lips lifted a tenth of an inch.
Russell gave me a “come on” gesture with the fingers of his right hand. “Let’s hear it.”
“Hear what?”
“Guess.”
“Starting where?”
“Wherever all of this began, hotshot. Up to you.”
I could have had my lawyer present, but Russ and I don’t do that since I’m never guilty, just lucky, so I started with quitting my job with the IRS last July and becoming a PI trainee at my nephew’s investigative firm.
“Don’t start there,” he growled.
“After that, huh? You sure? You’ll miss out on a couple of great stories. Decapitated heads, severed hands—”
“How about last night? You said my kid came to see you at the Goose. How would she have known where to find you?”
“You’ll have to ask her. She didn’t say. If she’s stalking me, it’s probably your fault.”
“Pick it up from there, Angel.”
That part didn’t take long. He seemed to like the part where Danya said her father didn’t like Mortimer Angel, thought he was an unprofessional maverick.
“I beg to differ,” I groused. “I’m a professional maverick.”
Day grunted something that might have been agreement or a laugh. Either way, I liked him better for it.
“Didn’t say what she wanted?” Fairchild asked.
“Nope. Just to call her at ten the next morning. She didn’t want to talk with anyone else around. Said it was private.”
I went through the two calls that went to voice mail, Danya’s return call sending me to the house on Elmcrest Drive, which was empty except for one Vincent Ignacio, tabloid creep.
“Hold on a second.” Fairchild’s face was white. Whiter than usual anyway; guy didn’t get nearly enough sun. “Who?”
“Reporter for Celebrity News. That’s a tabloid rag, in case you didn’t know. After I dragged him off the fence and tossed him into—well, against—a garbage can, he told me his name was Bill Hogan. But his driver’s license was for Vince Ignacio, so he’s a liar—not an expert liar like an entrenched politician, but a liar all the same.”
“Ah, jeez.” Fairchild ran fingers through his hair.
I told him about chasing Vince off, going in the house, having a quick look around, then Shanna at the entrance to the bedroom. I didn’t tell him about the knife. Didn’t think that needed to enter the narrative. But the shower deal, that seemed unavoidable since the shower was wet—not the kind of thing to try to hide, which would just cause another round of particularly annoying questions. But I managed to avoid details about the eyeful I’d gotten, or the memory that might stick with me the rest of the year.
“She showered, huh?” Fairchild said, squinting at me.
“She’d just come back from the gym and a six-mile run. Girls are picky like that, Russ. Little sweat and they lose it.”
“Right. With strange guys in the house, they shuck their clothes and hop in the shower.”
“You think I’m strange?”
“I think you’re unprecedented.”
“Anyway, if you were recording this you could play it back. I never said she shucked her clothes. That was you. I’m not even sure what that would look like—shucking, I mean.”
He stared at me like I was from Neptune. I get that a lot.
“Fact is, Russ, I think you’re stranger than me. We should take a poll. I could be wrong. And when she shucked or removed her clothes, I wasn’t in the room. About then I got a call from Danya. I told her about the News guy and she freaked, wanted me to give the phone to Shanna.”
“Which you did, of course. In the bathroom, right?”
“Terrific deduction, since that’s where the shower’s located and she was in the shower. Whatever they’re paying you, it isn’t nearly enough.”
“And how’d that go?”
“The handoff went okay. I left and they talked for a minute. I couldn’t make out any words, then Shanna told me to come back and get the phone. She said Danya wanted to talk to me.”
“So, she gave you the phone. When she was in the shower. How’d that go?”
“Pretty good. I’m thinking she might’ve run track in school because we didn’t lose any time on that handoff either. Before I went out the door, she told me she and Danya were married.”
“What!”
“Married,” I repeated, thinking I’d enunciated clearly enough the first time. “Since sometime in April, she said.”
“Jesus, what? Sonofabitch.”
“Uh, let me guess. You didn’t give Danya away. She didn’t tell dad about the nuptials.”
“Ho-ly Christ.”
“Or, Russ—Shanna could’ve been lying. Not sure why, but it could’ve been misdirection, put me on a different track.”
That slowed him down. Stopped him, actually. He paced, not easy in a room that size, but his legs were short.
He stopped and looked at me. “I’ve met Shanna. Lots of times. I thought they were just roommates. Now you tell me they’re married. But—lying? You think she might’ve been?”
“You want an expert opinion?”
He glared at me.
“She showed me a ring. Which doesn’t actually mean a thing, but . . . who knows.” I hesitated. “You and Danya haven’t had any long father-daughter talks in the last year or two, huh?”
“Well, shit. But you still didn’t give me that opinion.”
“Best guess—yeah, they’re hitched.”
“Sonofabitch.” He left the room.
I look
ed at Day. “I’m thinking that’s his favorite word.”
“For you, yeah.”
Five minutes later, Russell was back. “Then what?” he said.
Took me a moment to figure out where we’d left off. “Okay, I went into the living room and Danya wanted to know how much I charge for gumshoeing.”
“For what?”
“Gumshoeing. She might’ve called it investigating.”
“Jesus.”
“While we were discussing rates, I saw Ignacio roll by in that Chevy Cruze. Ignacio’s that tabloid guy, who I’m starting to think knows more about all of this than you or I do.”
“Sonofabitch,” Russ growled.
I looked over at Day. “Okay, that wasn’t me.”
“Might’ve been,” Day replied.
Russ stared at me, then at Day. “Hah?”
“Nothing. So then, Danya hung up on me for no reason, which is sort of her MO, and I ran outside, tried to catch up with Ignacio, but he took off. I went back in the house, looked around a little, then Shanna came out in a towel and chased me outside.” I didn’t have to mention the towel, but spinning Fairchild around a time or two has been a significant part of our relationship, so the towel stayed in.
“Christ. I oughta be a private eye,” Russ said, then he caught himself, possibly because he had twenty-five years on Shanna, who might also be his daughter’s spouse, which would make her his son-in-law. And, shit—there goes my political-correctness merit badge.
“Okay,” Russ said once he’d collected himself. “She comes out in a towel so you go outside.”
“Right, and we did it in present tense, just the way you said it. I looked around the yard, didn’t see anything, then she came out in jeans and a shirt, no towel.”
I decided the note demanding a million dollars didn’t need to come into it, especially since it had been stuffed up a drainpipe, so I passed over that part.
“About then I caught a whiff of something rank around the garage, like garbage, but then I remembered that their garbage can was outside by the gate. So I asked Shanna for a key. She told me where they were, I put the key in the lock and the hasp fell out since it’d been jimmied, and, well . . . that’s why I’m the premier locator of missing persons in all of North America, Russ. All I can tell you is, it’s a knack.”
“Sonofabitch.”
Not only his favorite word, but rhetorical, too. I didn’t think it warranted a comment, so I sat there and waited.
“But now Shanna’s gone,” he said.
“She took off. A good look at Xenon hanging there against the back wall of the garage and she ran. I tried to catch her, but . . .” I shrugged. “She’s half my age, built like a freakin’ deer. Thing is, she did it in sandals, which I think means Air Nikes and the Swoosh aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.”
“Hell. But, what you say—it sounds as if she didn’t have any idea he was in there, strung up in the garage.”
“Didn’t seem like it. If she knew, I don’t think she would’ve stuck around while I went to get the key. And she didn’t know the lock was busted.”
Silence.
I said, “You probably ought to know that when I got back after not catching Shanna, that Celebrity News guy—Ignacio—was coming out of the garage with a camera.”
“Oh, jeez. Oh, Jesus Christ, no.”
“He got pictures of Jo-X and a picture of me coming at him, then went over the back fence like a wharf rat.”
He stared at me. “A wharf rat?”
I shrugged again. “Fast, nimble. It’s an image. I didn’t see fur or a tail, but he was wearing clothes.”
“Sonofabitch.”
“Right. I went after him, but everyone I go after is faster than me these days, although I’m pretty sure I could keep up with Rush Limbaugh. Fact is, I put my foot through the roof of that old doghouse, trying to go over the fence after Ignacio. I saw him run through a yard, pop over another fence, and that was that.”
Big sigh from Fairchild. “Then what?”
At this point, what I needed was some slack in the story line, a little time gap for the contraband I’d crammed up the drainpipe, so I improvised. “I went out to the street and looked for Shanna. You can see a quarter mile before the street takes a bend. She was gone. I went down a side street behind the girls’ house, tried to spot Ignacio since he went over a fence that way, but he was gone, too. So I went around the block, still didn’t see Ignacio or Shanna, came back, phoned it in, and your guys came and cuffed me so I couldn’t go crazy and put four or five of them in the hospital.”
Another little grin from Day.
Russell was silent for two full minutes, thinking. Then he said, “Okay, we’re gonna have to do this again, record it this time. What I did here was, you know . . .” He glanced up at the camera.
“Illegal.”
“As a sonofabitch. But Danya’s my kid, Angel. I don’t know what the fuck’s goin’ on, but she’s my kid. I don’t figure she’s any part of this, I mean Xenon bein’ killed, murdered, strung up in that garage, but . . . fuck.”
“I get it, Russ. I’ve got a daughter, too.”
For a moment he was silent, thinking. Then: “Can’t think of anything you told me that isn’t gonna be on the record one way or another, so let’s go through it with the recorder on. Same as we just did.”
“PG rating on Shanna in the shower?”
“Tell it the way it was.” Then he gave me an extra hard look. “But no surprises, Angel. This’ll be on the record. A jury might end up seeing it. If you screw it up, we’ll have to do it again.”
Two fifteen p.m. My car hadn’t been disassembled. In fact, it was in the back lot behind the police station, right where it had been after last year’s Q&A sessions when I was finding decapitated heads. It had been vacuumed, which was thoughtful of them. I was ambivalent about the fingerprint dust on the steering wheel, dashboard, door handles, but I didn’t say anything about it to Fairchild, who had escorted me out the back door.
“She’s not answering her phone,” he said. “Danya. I tried to ping her phone’s GPS, but she must’ve pulled the battery.”
“You can ping GPS? I mean you, the police?”
“What d’you think?”
Kids these days knew all about GPS, knew how to pull the battery. Things were a lot easier in the Middle Ages. Back then, kids didn’t pull the batteries out of their cell phones. Ever. And you could run that comment past a bunch of today’s teenagers and get a lot of blank looks.
“Walk with me, Angel.” Russ nodded toward the Cyclone fence at the back of the lot.
I gave him a questioning look. He gave me another nod and kept going. The fence bordered the River Walk, a meandering asphalt pedestrian and bike path that rambled along the south side of the Truckee River as it passed behind the police station.
Russ opened a gate in the fence, and we went through, then headed east, away from downtown. It was a nice day. Gentle breeze, blue sky, cottonwoods providing shade. The river flowed around big granite boulders, water eddying and sparkling in the sun. Russ didn’t say a word until we were a quarter mile out.
“We still haven’t got the guy who killed Senator Reinhart and those others last year,” he said. “FBI’s got nothing.”
“I would’ve heard if they had, Russ, but the update puts a high note on the afternoon.”
He glanced at me. “The guy killed your woman, too.”
“Thanks for reminding me. That was and still is the worst day of my life.” And it was a she who killed Jeri, not a he, but I couldn’t tell him that.
“Sorry about that. Really.” He was silent for a minute. “But, Angel, someone phoned it in or we never would’ve known. A 911 call. A woman. We got her on tape. She sounds older, like over forty, maybe over fifty. Also sounds like she tried to change her voice. She knows it happened and where it happened, so she probably knows who did it.”
“Maybe she’s the killer.”
Russ shrugged. “We th
ought of that. Cell phone she used was a burner, untraceable, so we’ve got nothing. I mean, nothing useful. A lawyer named Leland Bye was down in that mineshaft, too, north of Gerlach, and a young hooker, both shot dead, but that’s the end of the trail. After that, it’s nothing but vapor.”
“Well, shit. I sure wish you’d get the guy. I would tap-dance on his grave.”
“Me, too. He’s still out there. Unless, of course, someone got to him, took care of him. Someone who’s kept it real quiet.”
“Batman’s got the Riddler, I’ve got you.”
We strolled another hundred yards without speaking. I didn’t know how Russ had come up with that zinger, but I wasn’t going to say another word about it. Might mention it to Ma, though, see what she thought about it, especially since she was the “older woman” who’d made the 911 call.
“No idea what Danya wanted a PI for, huh?” he said at last. “I mean, she didn’t say anything about this Jo-X asshole? Man, I hate sayin’ Jo-X, like I’m some sort of fuckin’ groupie.”
“Not a word. I don’t think she had any idea Xenon was in that garage.”
Another sigh. “This is gonna be a sonofabitch, Angel. No way it’s not gonna be a lousy rotten sonofabitch. It’s my kid, so they’ll take me off the case, which sucks.”
“Or it might free you up.”
He looked at me. “That’s the way you think, huh?”
“It works for me. Anyway, Danya seems like a nice girl.”
“She is. She . . . well, her mother and I never got married. I was pretty young, twenty-three. Danya’s mother—Denisha—was twenty-one. Denisha Fuller. I’ve been paying child support for a long time. I would’ve made a good father. What I mean is, I am a good father. I’ve got a daughter, Josie, seventeen, by my wife. But Denisha . . .” He sighed, kicked a pebble off the path. “She left Reno before she had Danya. She raised Danya in Alabama, south side of Tuscaloosa. Denisha was a real looker when she was younger, but . . . she had that hard edge, even then. Got married twice, divorced twice. She and Danya have had their problems. Danya’s been here in Reno since a month after she turned eighteen. She’s twenty-two now. Finally wanted her own place, so last year I put my name on the lease for that house she’s in. She and Shanna met two years ago. They were roommates for a year, students up at UNR. Danya’s a psychology major, taking it kinda slow, eight, ten credits a semester. Not in a big hurry. Shanna’s paying a quarter of the rent, Danya’s paying a quarter. I’m paying half. Now you tell me they’re married.”
Gumshoe on the Loose Page 6